Explosion, many deaths at Ariana Grande concert in Manchester: Open Thread

Terrible news: An explosion outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester has left at least 19 dead and 50 injured, according to press reports at the time of this writing. There are apparently indications it was a suicide bomber, but details are still scarce at this point.

Thoses fake news are evil. They are less serious than the bomb, but they revolt me more, for reason I can’t adequatly put in words.

Yeah, I feel this way too. I think it’s because of the lack of any motive other than pure sadism. Say what you will about terrorists, at least they think they’re fighting for a better future. Internet assholes, on the other hand, are just doing it for the joy of hurting others.

I see the suspect has been arrested in Chorlton. That’s where my aunt lives. This is turning into a bit of a strange day, to put in mildly.

Yeah. I keep looking at the Guardian cover, and the guys helping people out of the venue. But I keep thinking that half an hour before it would all have been so normal. Just another gig. Standard roadie stuff. Mild boredom, nice easy night. Getting ready for the load out etc. Then this. It’s that juxtaposition thing again.

As to the suspect thing, one thing that’s common to these sorts of things is that in the immediate aftermath all sorts of stuff happens that eventually goes nowhere. So I’m trying not to speculate about anything until the facts are actually established.

@moggie so if she serious then shes not like milo because he is simply attention seeking. She is serious and she wants muslims to face ‘final solution’ and she writes for news paper too? i have to go on sleep now but probably wont. In less 5 hours have to work agian too. These kids here will be damaged forever by this. People like Katie Hopkins have no soul.

It’s not enough that the incels are saying the vilest possible things about the victims of the Manchester attack; they’re now celebrating because this is “Saint Elliot’s Day” (ie the anniversary of Rodgers’ murders).

Just saw the news, has hit me very hard. I was born in Manchester, went to Manchester Uni, lived there for the best part of a decade. Now I live just outside it but go in weekly to see my mum, two sisters and two nephews who live there and have seen many shows at that very venue. Just feeling horrible right now, seeing the photo of the eight year old who was killed brought tears to my eyes. I thought the 1996 IRA bomb that blew a massive hole in the city centre would be as bad as it got, but no one died in that attack (amazingly).

What’s doubly sad is that Manchester has one of the most integrated and long established Muslim community in the whole country (I lived in the main one). I know that they’ll be as horrified by what’s happened as the rest of us and I really hope there are no “reprisal” attacks against them =/

The second named victim was eight years old. Really hard to take this.

Valentine, Kate Hopkins and Milo are not entirely alike. With Milo, it’s been observed that it’s hard to know what he really believes in, other than fame and money. Hopkins certainly wants those too, and courts notoriety, but she appears to be genuinely far-right.

While I’m not denying this, I’m aware that they’d claim responsibility for any terror attack they can, whether they did it or not.

Still, the police have said it’s very unlikely the perp acted completely alone.

I’m feeling really uncharitable towards them at the moment.

I’ve lost all patience for anyone spewing hateful and/or far right sentiment. I will tell them exactly what they should hear. Their feelings become irrelevant when they choose to support vicious causes.

This is horrifying. I went to bed early when the news hit because I didn’t want to hear my family and family friends speculating about refugees and Muslims. which they inevitably would, knowing how racist they are (including the family friends, despite being young).

My dad and this dude were both repeating the “I saw a Facebook post that turned out not to be true so that means I can believe anything I want and pick the facts that make me feel good about my ideology” sentiment. you know “CNN is as bad as fox news” type stuff.

this dude has a little toddler and he’s gonna pass his views onto his kid. oh my god.

While I’m not denying this, I’m aware that they’d claim responsibility for any terror attack they can, whether they did it or not.

There are certain formulae of words that ISIS use depending on whether an attack was directly planned by them, merely inspired/encouraged by them, or just one they want to take credit for regardless. There are also other clues in information they release (if it’s an actual ISIS planned operation they include certain details).

Here they’re using the ‘soldier of the Caliphate’ tag. That’s normally reserved for people they don’t know but who they assume supports them (they use ‘nom de guerres’ for their own people). They’ve also quoted a few details we now know to be wrong but that were mentioned in early news reports.

Of course it’s dangerous to speculate, but at this stage my thinking is that this is just a self radicalised perpetrator, of whom ISIS had no pre-knowledge; and who knows why he may have done what he did?

I hope you are okay and that everyone you know in Manchester is okay. My lot are originally from down the road near Buxton, and Manchester’s where, for instance, my gran goes for her hospital appointments. This will add another layer of worry for her when she goes (it’s already a pretty crap taxi/public transport journey of a couple of hours each way); though to be fair, she survived three separate V1 attacks in the 1940s, so she’s pretty hardcore.

Katie Hopkins can, respectfully, do one. She knew what she was doing when she said ‘final solution’, and she knew what she was doing when she deleted it. Hopefully, one day, when someone asks, as Valentine did, ‘Who’s Katie Hopkins?’, the only answer anyone will be able to give is ‘fucked if I know’. A terrible human being, and she’s getting no more of my attention today.

All my bile, however, goes to everyone trying to gain something from this horrible act. I wish I could concentrate on grieving the loss of lives in what was a celebration of music and fun, but every time something like this happens my anger swells for every pundit and politician who gleefully push their god-awful rhetoric.

@DanHolme: Thanks, I phoned my sister just to be doubly sure and everyone is fine, just very shocked. I was due to visit them today, but rescheduled to to another day before this happened. Apparently this was a wise decision. The Arndale Centre were I was going to pop in to do some shopping was evacuated and the police are advising everyone try and keep out of the city centre still as investigations continue.

I usually leave my computer for the day at suppertime and this was what was on my news shows. An expert on terrorism said that Daesh and Al-Quida usually won’t claim responsibility for things like this until they know the perpetrator/s are dead. She didn’t say so, but I got the impression that was so they won’t be able to contradict the terrorist’s narrative.

This is awful. I wish for best outcomes for everyone affected and mourn the lives lost and the damage to the rest.

Thank you. Re your comment about ‘doubling down’, I worry about the same thing, but hopefully the reaction of the community, which has been well publicised, will go some way to stopping that from happening too much. Unless trolls like KH try and cause trouble for their own gain, of course. There’s an article about how people responded here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40011977

@Varalys

I’m glad to hear that your family are okay. It’s going to be a tough couple of weeks for everyone, I imagine. Related to what I wrote above, I see that prize berk Piers Morgan tried to demonise the Muslim community in an interview with some Corrie stars, who put him right pretty sharply.

The Bombing at a Manchester Ariana Grande Show Was an Attack on Girls and Women

Damned good point. Whenever one of these terrorist attacks go off in a quote-unquote “Western” country (the ones that occur in the Middle East are universally ignored), the tendency to read it as a “clash of civilizations” means that the context of the target is ignored in lieu of “Western values”. Charlie Hebdo was fairly obviously an attack against journalists and political cartoonists who antagonized Islam. But the context of other incidents like the November Paris attack seem to get lost in the nomenclature that forms: the “Paris attack,” as if it was meant as an assault on France’s capital itself. Remember, that one also started at a concert. It’s more than just a crowded venue, they’re striking at these targets deliberately, as the article indicates, to disrupt the daily lives of people. To make them think twice about to that next concert or sports game. Even better, alienate fellow citizens who happen to share a faith with the perpetrators, pushing them in the direction of the extremists.

That article also reminds us that the very sexism and misogyny that drives the religious fundamentalists of Daesh is rife in “Western” society as well. It just happens to be subtler than an IED. Enough cat-calls and online bullying will keep a young woman or girl from wearing the outfits she likes the same as any terrorist act, so it’s worth keeping that in mind before we become righteously indignant at the “Moose Lambs” (many of whom listen to Ariana Grande as well).

*sigh* The bloodshed is bad enough, but I just wish we didn’t have to go through the same song and dance where the usual suspects blame the whole religion, demanding Muslims justify their very existence again and again and again. It’s meant to tire the rest of us, but it does a good job of it…..

I’m just sad people are getting frightened again. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, the heyday of the IRA targetting the UK mainland (and I don’t recall ordinary Catholics being forced to constantly justify themselves after every atrocity) and you always had it in the back of your mind when you went into the city that you might find yourself on the wrong end of an IRA bomb. This pretty much lasted until 1996 in the UK when the 1996 bomb went off in Manchester City Centre. After that there was a lovely period where kids like my youngest sister got to grow up without having to fear random explosions. And now it’s happening again. 🙁

Just got that euphemism! But yeah, guy being interviewed last night who’d just picked his wife and daughter up is presumably Muslim. Like I say, the bit I can’t get out of my head was that the trip to the gig was a Christmas present. That just adds that extra layer of awfulness and cruelty. She must have been looking forward to this for months. And now this.

But for all the attempts at othering this was just a regular 12 year old girl excited about seeing her favourite pop star.

I was near furious last night, when I first heard the news, because I knew it would be used to validate islamiphobic beliefs. I just feel deep inside me that this will be used to escalate the situation somehow, I mean it probably won’t but because of bureaucracy, but still this along with what happened in the Philippines makes me scared for an even further rise in islamiphobia. Sorry if this is dumb or repetitive just felt the need to say something somewhere.

The only thing more senseless than this mass murder is the right-wing so-called response to it. Everyone from Geraldo Fucking Rivera and Katie Fucking Hopkins to the deservedly-celibate incels can just kiss my ass today. People are dead, and they’re looking to score political points off it. How are they any better than Daesh? (Spoiler: They’re not. Not one infinitesimal bit.)

That’s just it, you can’t get a blue Rizla+ paper between them ideologically. It’s all hate, and mainly towards same targets.

And they both have the same aims. ISIS talk about ‘eliminating the gray zone’. That’s just making sure Muslims and non-Muslims don’t trust each other and feel they can’t live together. How’s that different from what our wanker friends want? As you rightly point out, it isn’t. They’re all aiming for the same goal.

(I nearly said “playing into ISIS’ hands”, but that would imply there’s something inadvertent about it. There’s not, they overtly and consciously want the same thing.)

Yeah, I stole “Moose Lambs” from that original sketch of Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer using the props during a press conference. The fact that the stuffed lamb was literally Lambchop herself just made it all the more funny.

the terror threat level in Britain has been raised from severe to critical

That’s pretty standard and we shouldn’t read too much into that. There’s no specific intelligence that suggests further attacks. It’s just that sometimes there can be follow up attacks so they assume that out of an abundance of caution. Just means a slightly more overt security presence on the streets for a week or so until everyone’s nerves have settled. It’s a reassurance thing as much as a practical one.

I admit I’m naive to Yahoo’s comments being terrible since I just read the articles and leave. Barely any decency in the comments especially on any article regarding Trump / LGBT topics. It’s like treading through a tar pit.

And I seriously regret reading some of the incels` reactions. Drawing utter bullshit parallels between being the victim of an explosion/attack and their voluntary celibacy is vile. Children died and according to them, they deserved it because they – the girls would have grown up to not sleep with them. Fucking disgusted but not surprised coming from them.

The public seems to forget that the majority of ISIS victims have been other Muslims, that a good percentage migrants and refugees are here to escape attacks these sort of attacks that had become near routine events for them. Of course it will be law abiding Muslims or Sikhs who deal with a completely pointless fallout.

Yeahnopelous has actually weighed in on the bombing, with all the class and decorum we’ve come to expect from him. The only reason I pay attention to him, or even click on specific reminders of him, is because I don’t want to miss hearing about it when his efforts to be the Ernst Röhm of the new millennium inevitably end up in the same place the original did.

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